First recording session w/ DP6 (and CueMix)

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:57 pm

I dunno. I've been mixing ITB for a number of years now. At first I thought I'd never like it. I was dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. But let's face it. Tape is getting scarce and I haven't used a razor blade in quite a while. Now all I use my board for is zero latency monitoring.

Mixing ITB is like painting with acrylics when you've been using water colors all of your life. It's a different medium and one needs to learn its idiosyncrasies. I think I'm at a point where my mixes sound as good as (if not beter than) my old analog mixes sounded. I've learned to adjust to the medium.

Phil

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:47 am

True Phil. I was dragged K&S as well.

The thing for me though is that the new, "squashed, thin, lifeless" sound I now have seems to be a flavour one can minimise (from what I've heard by lowering and careful control of track levels), but now that I've tasted it, it seems to me that it can only be minimised at best. IOW, now that I've tasted it full-strength, any dilution is just that - a dilution, but the taste remains.

Sorry, but that's the best analogy I can think of. Bar tender, as I know I can't order plain water from you, I'll have a heavily-diluted lime cordial, please. LOL

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:44 am

Funnily enough when I first entered the world of the DAW I loved mixing in the box. I loved the fact that you could bring up a mix exactly as it was and continue working on without having to set up patch bays, effects and EQ like the world I had come from.

Now 7 years later I still love that but I'm starting to miss the days of old desks and outboard effects.

Sometimes just patching something in wrong could provide a sound you wouldn't of though of, or the way analog gear especially older stuff needs to warm up and may sound different depending on time it is or season.

Ah the movement of electrons through wire, tubes and magnets brings a misty look to my eyes.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:55 am

Me too Mark. They're cosy too; better than wood-fired heaters for we audio peeps.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:04 am

You are right

the heat a old MCI desk throws out heat would warm the coldest of houses in a brutal melbourne winter.

AHHHHHH

Misty eyed again

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:33 am

Stop! You're gonna make me cry.

I miss the feeling of the warm surface under my hands. Even the O2R used to get nice and warm. Hey, maybe that's why it sounded OK?

FutureLegends · Post by **FutureLegends** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:10 am

Our control room gets so unbelievably hot even in Swedish winter (almost unbearable in summer) so that's also a negative thing for me about mixer/outboards. Although I love the real stuff and want more of it.
I want a 12-16 channel mixer/summer with no preamps, eq or faders but inserts/sends, maybe 2 sub and small footprint. That would be sweet.

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:30 am

Hey, there's nothing that says you can't use outboard gear. I do it all the time. Using outboard gear with DP is a piece o' cake. I think Radiogal's question was regarding the actual summing in DP vs. doing it on an external board.

I have a compressor that I designed and built many years ago that I still use today. It's one of my studio's secret weapons.

Phil

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:46 am

Agreed, Phil. That was my point too, although, as I said, the O2R managed the summing more transparently somehow.

Secret weapon eh? I'll bet you could knock a brick wall down with it too, or at least do more damage than is possible with DP's install disk, manual or box. If not, throw the thing away now! Monkey will dispose of it for you if you send it to:

Mr. Monkey Man
513 Banana Alley
Cape Coconut
Jungleville 1053

He'll be moving to coincide with the DP6 and OSX upgrade soon to:

Mr. Monkey Man
600 Banana Alley
Cape Coconut
Jungleville 1054

This free service announcement was sponsored by the Free Gear for All society of Jungleville.

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:32 am

monkey man wrote:Secret weapon eh? I'll bet you could knock a brick wall down with it too, or at least do more damage than is possible with DP's install disk, manual or box. If not, throw the thing away now! Monkey will dispose of it for you if you send it to:

Yeah, it doesn't look like much, but I got the circuitry right. It's optically based, much like the LA2A (except with no transformers) and has a similar character. It's one of my favorite toys that I've made through the years, so I won't be throwing it away any time soon. If I ever do, you'll be the first to know.

Hey, I think we hijacked FL's thread. Sorry about that FL. It's the monkey's fault!

Phil

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:41 am

Back on topic...
I had another great day with DP6 yesterday. Six hour mixing session. Went without a hitch. I haven't used any VIs (except Model 12 for click tracks), but for audio DP6 seems to be a winner.

Phil

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:55 am

Phil O wrote:
monkey man wrote:Secret weapon eh? I'll bet you could knock a brick wall down with it too, or at least do more damage than is possible with DP's install disk, manual or box. If not, throw the thing away now! Monkey will dispose of it for you if you send it to:
Yeah, it doesn't look like much, but I got the circuitry right. It's optically based, much like the LA2A (except with no transformers) and has a similar character. It's one of my favorite toys that I've made through the years, so I won't be throwing it away any time soon. If I ever do, you'll be the first to know.

At this point, I'm over the moon like a cow. Thank you Philibuster!

Phil O wrote:Hey, I think we hijacked FL's thread. Sorry about that FL. It's the monkey's fault!
Phil

Doh! Yeah, sorry about that FL.
Now it's back to being kicked all over the board. Better than being kicked overboard, I s'pose. Oh well, I see I'm required in the "It's all Monkey Man's Fault..." thread again. I wonder what new method of simian slaying they've come up with now...

EDIT: You wouldn't believe it, but monkey football (in which I'm the ball), and doing medical experiments like putting deodorant and soap on me and seeing what happens, along with perhaps feeding me microwaved, pureed bananas are the latest suggestions. Oh boy. Wish me luck, Philster.

FutureLegends · Post by **FutureLegends** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:16 am

Phil O wrote:Hey, there's nothing that says you can't use outboard gear. I do it all the time. Using outboard gear with DP is a piece o' cake. I think Radiogal's question was regarding the actual summing in DP vs. doing it on an external board.

How do you do that? Do you send it to outboards through sends? Inserts? and then back into the interface?
Right now we go via preamps (and occasional comp when we can be bothered to reconnect cables) to the interface.
But then we would need more inputs (don't really trust the ones on the 2408) I guess.
Sometime we gonna connect our patchbays. But neither me nor my studio partner have the knowledge how to do it and we both suck at soldering. And we can't afford to hire someone to do it.
I absolutely HATE to have to reconnect cables and I even more hate it when someone else have done it so I have to spend the first hour just trying to figure out why things aren't working as they used to

Phil O wrote:Hey, I think we hijacked FL's thread. Sorry about that FL. It's the monkey's fault!

No worries, Feel right at home. My thread is your thread!

Lookinnn · Post by **Lookinnn** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:31 pm

Hey i have a question about CueMix ..
** sorry for the ON TOPIC shift ** haha

You stated that you hear audio when channels are muted

Do you hear audio even when tracks are not record enabled ?

I had to create a partition and re-install leopard and DP cuz i couldn't get that to stop sending audio no matter what ..

Is this because cuemix is sending the audio to the outputs?
how do i disable cuemix.

ALSO: i totally don't understand cuemix at all ..
where is the damn record button ? haha ..
am is supposed to run cuemix and dp at the same time ?
i'm lost ..
the manual has ONE entry for cuemix and its ONE sentence geez ..
thanks motu

jeff

Radiogal · Post by **Radiogal** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 1:44 pm

Wow, great response guys.. first of all about mixing on a mixingdesk and second all those fellow swedes I didn´t know existed using DP too...
We should organize a DP meeting someday, shouldn´t we?

Imagine all the tips and tricks we could share IRL.